Dr Ulrich Schmiedel (MLitt, DiplTheol, DPhil, DrHabil, FHEA)

Lecturer in Theology, Politics and Ethics

Biography

Background

Ulrich Schmiedel is Lecturer in Theology, Politics and Ethics at the University of Edinburgh. The Deputy Director of Edinburgh’s Centre for Theology and Public Issues, he has written widely on political and public theology. He also serves as Chair of the Academic Advisory Board of A World of Neighbours, a multi-faith network of actors working with migrants across Europe.

Ulrich is the author of Elasticized Ecclesiology: The Concept of Community after Ernst Troeltsch (2017) and the co-author of The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far Right (2020), written with Hannah Strømmen. His publications also include the co-edited compilations Dynamics of Difference: Christianity and Alterity (2015), Religious Experience Revisited: Expressing the Inexpressible? (2016), Religion in the European Refugee Crisis (2018), and Liberale Theologie heute – Liberal Theology Today (2019).

Prior to his appointment at Edinburgh, Ulrich was Lecturer in Systematic Theology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München in Munich, Germany, where he completed his post-doctoral dissertation in systematic theology ('Habilitation'). He gained his doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford, after studying theology, sociology and hermeneutics at the Universities of Glasgow and Stirling as well as the Universities of Leipzig and Halle-Wittenberg.

Qualifications

MLitt (University of Glasgow), DiplTheol (Universität Leipzig), DPhil (University of Oxford), DrHabil (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • Editor-in-chief of "Political and Public Theologies: Comparisons - Coalitions - Critiques" with Brill

 

  • Exchange Coordinator, School of Divinity
  • Honours Dissertation Coordinator, School of Divinity

Undergraduate teaching

  • Religion, Violence and Peacebuilding
  • The God(s) of the Philosophers: Problems and Proposals
  • Metaphysics and Morality
  • Public Theologies: Thinkers and Themes
  • Political Theologies: Thinkers and Themes

Postgraduate teaching

  • Public Theologies: Current Controversies
  • Political Theologies: Current Controversies

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

Ulrich welcomes enquiries from students who would like to pursue postgraduate studies in any area relating to his research.

Current PhD students supervised

Research summary

Ulrich specialises in political and public theology. Methodologically, his research combines systematic theology with both sociology of religion and philosophy of religion. His research interests include:

  • comparative theology and coalitional theory
  • ecclesiology
  • faith-based activism
  • history of theology, particularly the 19th and the 20th century
  • Islam in Christian theology
  • liberal theologies
  • migration and post-migration in theology, politics and ethics
  • religion in the far right
  • theories of religion

Current research interests

Most of Ulrich’s recent research has been concerned with the significance of Christianity for migrant and post-migrant societies, particularly in Europe. He was awarded a membership at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ, USA, where he participated in the interdisciplinary inquiry on religion and migration. Currently, he is completing a study of the conceptualizations of religion in political theologies in the UK and the US during the so-called 9/11 decade. Concentrating on the interpretations of Islam in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, this study makes a case for a comparative and coalitional political theology that can resist the instrumentalization of religion for the contagious concept of the clash of civilizations.

Knowledge exchange

Ulrich has been a public speaker at a variety of events. He often visits community and church groups for workshops. He has also contributed to a number of media outlets, both online and offline.

Affiliated research centres

Current project grants

‘Liberalism’s Islams and Islam’s Liberalisms: Constructing a Contrast in a Paradigmatic Period’, American Academy of Religion, International Collaborative Research Grant (2018-2019)

View all 48 publications on Research Explorer

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